You might look at this question and think “it doesn’t”. But
look at the table today, on 7th August 2012, as China leads the table,
and USA follows in second. It wasn’t
always this way: back in
the 2004 Olympics in Athens, USA was first in the table, followed by China
and then Russia.
China has been
creeping up the medal table, just as their economy has been booming. In fact, it was the Beijing
Olympics of 2008 when China first overtook the US in the medals table.
Back in the Olympics
of 1992 in Barcelona, the Olympic medal table told a different story. The
former USSR countries (then called the Unified team) came top of the medals
table by a long way. It seems it took a little while for the end of the Soviet
Union to be reflected in the medals table.
Before the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR dissolved, the
Soviet Union and East Germany had been doing really well in the Olympics medal
department, like in the Seoul
Olympics of 1988. One exception to
this was in the 1984 LA Olympics
in the USA when many Soviet countries
actually boycotted the Olympics, meaning the USA came top.
The USA had actually boycotted the previous Moscow Olympics back in
1980 – in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - and athletes
could not participate or they would have their passports revoked. At this
point, the US and USSR did not want to visit each others’ countries and governments
were willing to boycott the Games to put their point across.
As we can see, like most things, the Olympics can get quite
political. I am not saying this is a
scientific analysis, and it is definitely not, but there could be a few reasons
why this could be happening:
1. Funding for sports
Funding for sports is obviously quite related to economic
power. The bigger superpowers (like
China now) can afford to put funds into their Olympic team and train good
athletes.
2. Using the Olympics to gain status
Countries like the Soviet Union might have tried to fund
sports more enthusiastically to gain status during the Cold War.
3. Hosting countries have the home advantage
Countries like China in the Beijing Olympics of 2008 may
have benefitted from the home advantage, being able to support their team with
sports funding in order to host the Games. Countries may be more likely to generate
a successful bid for the Games if they are doing pretty well. Australia, as the host of the 2000 Sydney
Olympics came fourth in the table. Confidence also plays a role, and the
effect of the home crowd.
Unfortunately, no city
in Africa or South America (until Rio next time) has ever hosted the
Olympic Games!! Hopefully, we will see
an African city host the Olympic Games in coming decades, as African
economies' start to boom.
The Olympics can also be a place for politics to take place.
For example South Africa was banned by the
IOC from participation in 1964 because of the oppressive apartheid regime, and they
were only allowed to rejoin back in
1992.
The IOC is headquartered in Switzerland, and the Olympic
Charter states there
should not be any demonstration at the Games, but it seems you cannot
remove politics entirely (and would you really want to?)...
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